Articles

Highlights of the workshop on "Study of farmers' indebtedness in M.P."

The institute is planning a study aimed at identifying the causes of distress and indebtedness among the farmers of Madhya Pradesh. In order to develop the concept and methodology for the study, a one day workshop, presided over by the Director General, was organized on 23rd July 2015 at the institute. Apart from the core faculty of the institute, the following experts brainstormed and helped refine and develop the concept and approach for the study. Shri Pravesh Sharma, Managing Director, Small Farmers' Agribusiness Consortium, Dept. of Agriculture and Cooperation, Govt. of India, New Delhi, Smt. Meera Mishra, Country Coordinator- Asia and the Pacific Division, International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), New Delhi, Shri Akhilesh Argal, Director, AIGGPA, Shri Ashis Mondal, Director, Action for Social Advancement, Bhopal, Dr. Ashish Diwedi, Deputy Director - Centre for Systems Studies, Hull University Business School, University of Hull, UK, Shri M.R. Jatav, Additional Director, Agriculture Department GoMP, Shri K.P. Ahirwar, Joint Director, Farmer Welfare and Agriculture Development Dept., GoMP, Bhopal. The workshop was coordinated by Shri Saurabh Bansal, Programme Coordinator (Knowledge Management) and Shri Gaurav Khare, Project Officer (Knowledge Management), AIGGPA.

Issues discussed in the workshop included identifying aims/objectives of the study, literature on the subject/secondary information regarding the study, information that needs to be gathered for the study, sample size and methodology for the study, respondents for the study, instruments to be used for data collection, etc.
The workshop concluded with the following recommendations:

Identify the causes of farm distress.

The study should focus on some of the following key factors which contribute to farmers' distress -

Examine the relation between indebtedness and diversification of livelihood of farmers.

There is need to study factors like-

Chronic indebtedness.

Education and level of indebtedness.

Coping mechanism adopted by the indebted farmers.

Impact of institutional interventions like producer companies, government schemes, etc.

Sampling

Focus on small and marginal farmers.

Remote villages as well as road connected villages.

Small villages and large villages.

Irrigated and unirrigated villages.

Explore collaboration with research institutions like IGIDR, NIAP, ISEC Bangalore.

It was decided that on the recommendation of this workshop, the institute shall identify a collaborating institute and in association with this collaborating institute, a detailed concept note will be developed, which will be further discussed in the next workshop to arrive at a final design acceptable to both the institutions